Touched by an Angel by Maya Angelou

Touched by an Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple                                         and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old   memories of pleasure.                                   ancient histories of   pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love's light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.

Maya Angelou

Commentary:
So, first of all, I looked at the title of the poem. And, just from the title itself, I could hypothesize a lot of things. First, I thought that the tone might be angelic and calm. Second, I could figure out the main idea of the poem. I thought that it would talk about angels since the title read, " Touched by an angel"
After I read the poem, I thought that it was a very soothing poem. It talks about love and how it brings life into us.
In the first stanza, Maya Angelou says that we are not accustomed to have courage and that we live in loneliness until love comes into our lives, and thus frees us from the loneliness.
In the second stanza, Maya Angelou talks about what happens when love comes into our lives. We start remembering good times we had before and also the bad times.
In the third stanza, Maya Angelou says that love takes away our fear.

Next, in the last stanza, Maya Angelou says that love also takes our our timidity. When you fall in love with a person, confidence begins yo grow between the two. Then, you will notice that you have lost all the timidity you first had when you meet him or her. That is what Maya Angelou must have meant when she added this to her poem. In the end of the poem, Maya Angelou says love changes everything from us and we find out that only love can set us free. Love is everything to us and without it we are nothing.
When I analyzed the poem, I found that Maya Angelou used various figurative language to transmit to her audience her point of view on love.
All throughout the poem, Maya Angelou used personification. She says," ...until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love is an idea, but it is not a person or a human. In this phrase, Maya Angelou is expressing love like if it is a human being. Love can come to you, but in a sentimental way. Love can not actually come towards you. Also love can not liberate you like a human would.
Also, Maya Angelou says that love arrives in a train. As far as i know, humans can arrive on trains, but not love or ideas. Lastly, Maya says that love sets us free. For these reasons, I believe Maya Angelou used personification in this phrase. Overall, Maya Angelou used personification in her entire poem because she wanted to better come across her point and for her poem to be descriptive and engaging. By treating love as a person, she was better able to explain what love does when it enters our lives. 

Poem-Maya Angelou. Touched by an Angel. YouTube video